Amidst the battle for the soul of the State, the 2023 Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Oladipupo Adebutu has accused the state governor, Dapo Abiodun of mismanaging billions belonging to Local governments in the Gateway State.
The governor cannot account for a whopping N214 billion that accrued to the local governments, the PDP chieftain said. There are 18 local governments in the state.
Adebutu made the allegation on Thursday in Abeokuta, the state capital during a press conference, accusing Governor Abiodun of trying to silent him because of his penchant for transparency.
Reacting, the state government said the PDP candidate is a drowning man who is trying to unleash his anger on the governor after he was roundly rejected by the people of the state during the last governorship election.
Adebutu, the magazine recalls, lost the 2023 governorship election to the incumbent. He had earlier lost the election to Abiodun in 2019.
According to Adebutu, Governor Abiodun has failed to account for over N200 billion which accrued to the LGAs in the last five years, the PDP candidate called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to call the governor to order saying the “reason they have been pursuing me and want to shut me up is because they are stealing the local government money.”
The PDP candidate also accused the state government of being responsible for the violence during the recent local government election in the state wondering why the federal government has kept quite when people are being allegedly ‘killed’ because of power.
Adebutu said: “President Bola Tinubu should call Governor Abiodun to order because the way the governor has conducted himself in the last week, particularly over the LG poll is quite condemnable.
“If under a Yoruba presidency, the President will sit down and watch his people being killed and maimed because they want to exercise their franchise and vote the candidates of their choice, it will be very sad. The truth is that the governor is destroying whatever goodwill is left of the APC in the Southwest.
“The reason they have been pursuing me and want to shut me up is because they are stealing the local government money. They don’t want the stealing of our patrimony to stop.”
In its reaction to the allegations, Governor Abiodun’s spokesman, Kayode Akinmade described Adebutu as a spent politician who is trying to drag the state governor down with him.
There was no way such humungous amount could have been mismanaged by the governor, Akinmade said, asking, how the state government has been able to pay salary of LGAs workers after the alleged disappearance of the N214 billion.
He wondered how Governor Abiodun could have mismanaged the funds when he is not a signatory to the local government accounts.
If the allegation is true Akinmade, said,“That means, conceptually, that the said local governments did not pay any salaries and did not execute any projects in those five years, and it says a lot about a governorship candidate whose own running mate described him as a complete disaster.
“The fact is that at no time did Governor Abiodun touch a dime of LG funds in Ogun State, but Adebutu has to entertain his crowd.”
The issue of local government funds has remained a vexed issue in the country following allegation that the state governors are tampering with what is meant for the LGAs.
The apex court in the country, the Supreme Court in July, as part of the federal government’s efforts to stop the malaise had, in a landmark ruling ordered that funds accruing to the LGAs from the Federation Account be paid to them directly.
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